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Have questions about reputable self-publishers? Questions about which place to use, publishers, chapbooks?
Or, you want to know how to go about looking for a publisher, or even an agent?
The forum is not for promoting the stories that you have posted on Storywrite (or Allpoetry, etc). It's for ... say... you've self-published at lulu.com(or anywhere else).... and things like that.
Or... perhaps you have a plethora of publishing/story related web sites that are very handy and dandy to you, and you think others might benefit from knowing about them.
As long as you're not advertising for these sites, or asking people to join them
Barbara
Moderator Manager
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And I must add ... you cannot post links to competing sites. After all, would you walk into Sears and hand out Walmart circulars?
You asked for it, ya got it, now use it!
Yoshi97.
Storywrite Moderator - and Barbara's favorite victim to abuse
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Ok - Im going to be a pain the back side but define what you mean by advertise.
Do you mean something like:
'hey i found this really helpful site - click on www.tastyburger.com/stratchnsniff'
or do you mean:
'Would you like a really cheap and easy burger? why not click on www.tastyburger.com/stratchnsniff right now to claim your free burger ! NOW ! If you join you also get free memembership !'
Could you please clarify for us thickos out there. -
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Since it would have nothing to do with writing, I would say they're both advertising.
Advertising - "Hey, I have a web site that's pretty cool, you should go to it." or "I recently joined http://whatever.com, and you should try it."
Not advertising - One of the best places I've found for character names is http://www.20000-names.com . It's divided by country, and gender... and has a lot more than the usual names.
Or, "This is pretty cool http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=42274 anyone have any thoughts on it?"
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erm....why when I clicked on the last link in the above post did it end up on a dating site ?!!?!
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I clicked, and it goes to a "Manuscript Book Ghost Writers & Copy Editors" page.
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yeah yeah
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I clicked on it and saw small woodland creatures - and it wasn't [the hand of Toby comes by and snags the rest of this sentence].
I couldn't bear to watch ... for more than 20 minutes.
Especially the part where [the hand of Toby swats down Yoshi again]
Dag nabbit! Why does Toby's hand keep swatting at me? -
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Why does everything always go to weird so quick around here... oh wait stupid question. What does one expect when conversing with people who make a living out of letting their imaginations run wild.
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lol! true! True!
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I've noticed a lot of people cringe at the name PublishAmerica. Why? I know a few people who used them and got great results. They're not the greatest thing since sliced pineapple but for a new author it seems to be a step in the right direction. Any stories good/bad, about them?
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I commented on this in Yoshi's topic about useful links:
I have one!
http://travistea.com/
This links to a book that was used to expose the evil online publishing company known as PublishAmerica. They (PA) insulted sci-fi and fantasy writers by saying:
"As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction.... [Science fiction authors] have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home." It described them as "writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters." (quote travistea.com)
This angered a group of writers and those writers set out to write a really bad story to see how high their standards were. They each did one chapter and finished it over the weekend.
PA accepted it and then shortly after they were exposed.
By the way, Travis Tea is supposed to be a play on the word "Travesty."
Bottom line: if you find PublishAmerica.com, do not use it. 'Tis a scam. -
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Go to any search Engine, and type in 'PublishAmerica complaints'. There are a lot.
If you type in 'lulu.com complaints'... there are hardly any. Not to say that they're aren't any... any publisher that deals in POD has complaints.. .but...
PublishAMerica seems to be the top of the complaint heap. -
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To clear the facts on Publish America
As Barbara has said, Publish America is probably the WORST publishing site you can find right now. They word their contracts to make you believe that you have all the rights, but at the same time they are basically stealing your work. Their books are expensive (I've seen them for 20.00 fora book that would be 13.99) and I wouldn't buy from them unless a friend's book was through there. I still need to buy two of a friend's books, and shelling out 40.00 is something I wouldn't do for an ordinary site.
I have two friends who got published with them. One said that she had no problem with them and they haven't done anything with her stuff, and she's a VERY popular author in the small press/leisure industry. Another has had his work stolen and he has been fighting to get it back.
So yes, avoid Publish America. You might as well just spend some money to buy an ISBN for a Lulu book and have a bunch of people go through it, have someone edit it and have someone design a book and a cover. In the long run, it's better than having a Publish America credit on your resume.
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Ive decided to avoid all of this kind of thing and do it the old fashion way. Why ? cause I like the smell of printed pages.
BTW - avoid poetry.com. They asked for £75 in order for me to be published. Initially i didnt mind but then when i got it I found it to be poor quality, bady set out and that it wasnt massly available and that you had to pay £100 to buy it on the site.
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poetry.com is a well known scam site(in North America).... or, at the least, a shoddy vanity publisher.
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very true
I was excited to receive a letter from them for my first poem. But then when I got one for every single submission & even the really bad ones, I knew it was a scam. Damn them for praying on those with aspirations of actually being good. But I guess its just a lesson learned. No more of those sites. Yeah SW!!
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I received a letter from poetry.com as well. I then went in and wrote another poem saying a lot of things about their site and their scam.
It was such a great write, they wanted to publish it.
WOOT!
Seriously though, one never, ever, ever, pays to publish a poem, book, or story (unless you are paying an artist to do cover designs).
If they want money - shy away. Even (PODs) publish on demand sites that are reputable do not accept money to print your material. Instead, they sell it and profit along with you, as it should be.
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My situation
Ok my uncles have always harbored the idea of publishing(as have I). Now my uncle has an idea for a children's series and he wants as many people in the family as possible to write on of them(including me). The problem is none of us have any real clue how to get published.
So whats the first step? -
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If you're looking at self-publishing (or print on demand), the first step is to find a reputable website/publisher. The second would be to thoroughly go through the entire site, reading all the hints and information. Then, look them up on the internet to see if anyone has complaints. Try to find one where you pay no money (except to print a book at a time), then format, and upload it to the site. Buy one of the books to see how it looks. If you like it, then you're lucky! If not, then reformat, etc.
There are also small private 'presses' that will print for a small fee.
Honestly, lots of people get published nowdays... some make money, while others don't. But, the main first thing to do is read all you can on the different types of publishing, and pick one that appeals to you the most.
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I really recommend lulu.com
You can put it online and see if it sells - for free.
If you can manage to get many sales through lulu (it's very competitive) then you have quite a commodity on your hands and then should look into getting an ISBN (again, through lulu.com, for less than $100) and market through Amazon.com.
An ISBN is a number that book resellers use to identify one book from another. You must have one to market through any reseller.
As for why you want to see your book succeed through lulu.com for free before proceeding further is because if it doesn't succeed you haven't purchased an ISBN yet, you can always pull the book without any publishing house knowing it was ever there - publishing houses typically frown on publishing books that have been sold through self publishers.
Also, as competitve as lulu.com is for sales, if you can't sell 100 there, then that means you won't sell many on Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com, where there is just as much competition. No reason to spend $100 to get an ISBN number if you won't recoup the expense, eh?
I will always say that finding a reputable agent is the best way to go, but there are enough self publishin success stories not to rule out that possibility entirely - just be prepared to heavily self-promote your book if you go this route. -
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Are you saying lulu foot the bill? Do they print to order, or do they print an initial small number?
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Slave Jimmy, Lulu.com is a POD publisher, which is Print on Demand. They print books as they are bought and then send them out.
Lulu puts out some incredible work. I made a very bad first attempt at Lulu, but I DID get people looking into my stuff. I plan on putting some more stuff out through them, with an ISBN and blurbs and all that good stuff. : )
But all in all, their printing is WAY good. The only thing with Lulu is that people tend to overprice their books thinking they're going to make a ton of money. I have a friend who only makes a dollar off of his book for each book sold. In the long run, Lulu is about getting your work out there, not making money.
People DO get picked up by publisher's if they sell. My friend Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc got her two books picked up, and she still puts books up on Lulu and makes incredible sales. Another friend, Gregory Solis, has the #1 horror book on Lulu right now. And J.L Bourne was at number 1 before he got picked up by Permuted Press. J.L Bourne sold a few thousand copies with Lulu, I believe. -
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That's interesting, you can get published even if you're on lulu? I thought that being on lulu meant you were already published and that no publisher in their right mind would publish someone who's already published... I may have to look into that when I'm done with my book.
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They get picked up as a second edition when a publisher republishes it. See, in order to have your book published, you have to be extremely talented, but a lot of people don't like waiting for three months just to get rejected. I have a book that I've been editing for seven months and it still needs to go through edits, so I'm going to go through Lulu.
So yeah, you make an impact--if you can sell--you can get picked up by a publisher. Publisher's want to know the books can sell in order to buy them from you.
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I make a whole 25 cents profit on my books. I wanted to keep them in the $7-$8 range, but I might change that since book prices have gone up a lot in the past couple years.
Have you gone the eBook route? I was thinking of that, but I wanted to get other impressions first to see if people liked it. -
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It is an interesting idea as that particular market seems to be growing, though I don't know much about it.
Personally I wouldn't buy ebooks unless they were less then fifty thousand words, as I'm not a big fan of reading off the monitor.
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Ok, I have a question. I'm not sure if anyone can answer it, but how come Publish America hasn't been closed down yet? You'd think with all the complaints they get, they would be done by now.
I guess it's because they lure in unpublished authors and steal their stuff. -
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People still use them. There are some that will defend the publisher to their last breath. Personally, from both this site, and Allpoetry, I've heard more bad stories than good about them.
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So have I, which is why I warn new unwary authors not to go to them.
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A useful link
If you're sketchy about the publisher, go here-----> http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/peba.htm .
Preditors and Editors get complaints from people, they post them here. This is a complete A to Z guide about all the publishers people have told them about. They also do their own research. The place is a goldmine of information. -
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That looks like an excellent site!
Bookmarked.
I posted it to a topic on the AP publishing board.
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Yeah, it's a good place to go when you're sketchy.
Oh, and remember! No Publish America!
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I just thought of a fun contest idea...
What if we copied the authors of Atlanta Nights and wrote a crappy story to submit to Publish America. Crappiest chapter wins!
Meh... too much work... gotta make an outline and all... -
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I'm sorry, but I write good fiction. : )
lol to that idea though. I don't want to bring my professionalism down... lol -
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Sometimes it takes real talent(?) to write something truly horrible on purpose. To get those cliches working together in a way that the person reading wants to gag, but has to finish to see just how much worse it can get.
Then, in the author notes, you put "This was for a contest to see who could write the 'crappiest story'. I usually don't write this bad, and it was hard to lower myself to actualy do it." People flock to your other stories to see if they're better....(old marketing tool )
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I think I could write something utterly horrible.
Ooh, like this:
-Hallo, my nam is bill. I like hunt in woods. I got deer! I gut deer! I ate deer! I am men!-
lol to that.
lol to that last one Barbara!
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hehe, I write terrible stories - I'm game
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Adding your reply:
Barbara
Nov 5 7:39 PM 2007
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